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:. Kashmir: APDP, affected families meet UN rapporteur

Srinagar: The Association of Parents of disappeared persons (APDP) met the visiting UN special rapporteur during her two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.
In a statement sent to Press Bureau of India, a spokesman of Parveena Ahanger led APDP faction said that the party Chairperson joined by the relatives of the disappeared persons last evening met the UN envoy Margaret Sekaggya at a local hotel here and briefed her about the ground realities in Kashmir.
Parveena told the visiting UN envoy that the families of the disappeared persons were running form pillar to post for help in tracing the young ones who disappeared mysteriously during the last 22 years of turmoil in the valley.
“Though Government, who always pay lip service to us, has instructed the agencies operating in the valley to inform the families within 24 hours the whereabouts of the persons who were being rounded-up. But we know nothing even after the decades, when everybody knows these disappeared persons were picked up by the so-called Securities agencies on fabricated and concocted cases,” she told Margaret.
Parveena vowed to continue the fight to trace the missing persons, including her son till last breath.
The spokesman said that Shakeel, husband of Neelofar Jan and brother of Asiya Jan who were allegedly raped and murdered by uniformed men in May 2009 told the UN special rapporteur about the denial of justice to them.
“Without them I feel as if our house is endlessly on fire.” Shakeel told UN envoy.
“Our pain is common and the fate is unknown to all of us who are beating the chest for help in tracing our loved ones. But instead of consoling us they (government) rubs salt to our wounds,” said one of the parents while narrating the incident of disappearance of her son.
She added, “We are facing the torrid times as we are being deprived of government jobs and issuance of passport, on the pretext that we are the relatives of disappeared militant.” (PBI)